


The Time Before

by JEWISHAMARACAN



Category: Zero Escape (Video Games)
Genre: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors Spoilers, Abuse, Attempted Murder, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kidnapping, Morphogenetic Fields (Zero Escape), Multi, Murder, Murder Mystery, Nonary Game (Zero Escape), Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Pre-Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, Romance, Sexual Abuse, Slow Romance, Threats of Violence, Violence, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward Spoilers, Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:29:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23485339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JEWISHAMARACAN/pseuds/JEWISHAMARACAN
Summary: 'All Rights Reserved for Kotaro Uchikoshi - All three Games: 999, Virtue's Last Reserved, Zero Time Dilemma'After the events of the second Nonary Games, Junpei is set to find Akane. If she's even in a world where Junpei can find her. Seven, a man he met during the most recent Nonary Games, has given him a free pass to America with a catch. That he quits school and joins a detective agency where they try and hunt down a huge human and organ trafficking chain that is slowly infecting the underworld of Nevada. Along the way, Junpei's worst traumas start to build and his sense of being a "hero" is slowly burning away.
Kudos: 1





	1. Hi Disclaimer

Hi! Disclaimer: 

Hi! I am JEWISHAMARACAN, and as my name insinuates this is just a fanfiction. This chapter is a bit important, but it's as short as I feel I need to make it. So just hold on for a sweet second.

First off, I am not the owner of this series and I am merely a fan of it (a huge fan though). 

I just wanted to say that because all the credit goes to Kotaro Uchikoshi, who has written a magnificent story and this entire story will have Easter eggs and inevitably spoilers as well. Please go play the game if you haven't, it is a great story and well thought out. 

There are three games in total and Kotaro came out with a new game called "AI the Somnium Files," and it's on the PS4, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows. 

They're really all amazing games and I highly recommend we give them the attention it deserves because it doesn't get it! They really shouldn't be just "cult" games anymore, I feel they have the potential to be mainstream. So, the goal is to help by spending money on the games to support them but if you don't have the money please watch playthroughs of it on YouTube. That will also help it get a lot of attention. 

The games are called "Nine Person, Nine Hours, Nine doors" (but no one calls it that, we just call it 999), the second game is called "Virtue's Last Reward," and the third game is called, "Zero Time Dilemma." This story will spoil pretty much the first and last game, and may spoil a bit the new game "AI the Somnium Files." Depending on the direction of this story it might not spoil the second game, but I wouldn't take that chance just in case. 

This story will more often times spoil the first game, so if you played the first game a majority of the time you will be safe. But, there will be minor spoilers of the third game, as I said, if the story goes in the direction I plan it to.

I just wanted to point that all out before the zero people (XD) who will most likely read this don't come for me. This is just Junpei's story that I made up with some stuff coming from all the games really. 

If I haven't scared you off yet, enjoy my story! I hope it's to your liking, I put some time and effort into it to be honest. I want to be really honest with you, I post when I feel inspiration to. I don't like rushing out chapters and not giving my best content. I'm kind of a perfectionist. So if my chapters are pumped out really slow, that's why.

I also wanna be honest and tell you I have shitty grammar. I am trying to learn to have better grammar but I was not taught even simple grammar. I also change past tense, present tense and future tense up a lot. Though as I said, I am trying really hard to not do that. I know that annoys a lot of people so if that's just not for you then, I'm sorry. :') 

Another thing I want to be transparent about is in 2018 I just came out of a really bad abusive relationship, and on that whole journey I lost who I was. I lost touch with my inner self and slipped away from writing. He really robbed me of who I was, and this book is really to get me in touch with my inner artist again. So I'm really sorry if the writing isn't the best. As I said, I'm getting back into it. So, just hang in there!

Also, trigger warning as well, this does contain sexual abuse, human and organ trafficking, swearing, potentially smut (maybe), and maybe other forms of abuse as well. Drinking and drugs will be included as well, drug abuse as well. Mental illness will also be displayed. If you can't handle that then I wouldn't read this fanfic.

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, please enjoy my first chapter of this fanfic called "The Time Before."


	2. Chapter One

It was just a month after the last Nonary Games, my head was still swimming with all the feelings, experiences that I encountered there. 

A month ago, some crazy person gathered up nine people to find the number nine door and escape. If we didn't the ship we were on would sink. 

There were nine bracelets in total, to get us through the ship, one on each of us. They were all numbered between one and nine. My number was five. With the bracelets we got through the numbered doors, which were also between one and nine. 

We had to use digital roots with our bracelets to get through the doors. And a RED and DEAD system read our bracelets so we could go through. If we tried to sneak into doors when our bracelets didn't match the number after the digital root was calculated the bombs that were already in our body would go off, which we also couldn't throw up.

We were confused on what the purpose was, why we were there playing this game. Behind the doors were puzzles that would eventually end up helping us find clues and find the answers we had wondered.

We soon found out the purpose, to find out the truth on what happened nine years ago. To expose the people who held the very first Nonary Games. We ended up finding out not only was one of the nine people who held the games and killed one girl but we found out Zero was among us. And not only was Zero among us, but there were two people who were Zero instead of one. 

His code name was Santa, his bracelet number was three, and then the second person who was Zero was myself, from the future of course. I would eventually end up creating the second Nonary Games in the future. 

I was able to do this by, lets say, an ability to gain and give knowledge from and to different timelines within time itself. All of this was caused by the morphogenetic field. It's an imaginary field that's invisible to the human eye, think of this as thoughts and behavior patterns swimming through time and space to another timeline. To be more exact, to another person within those timelines in fact. It was also like time, as in past or future, didn't really exist to begin with. You could send or receive information regardless of whether it was in the past or future. 

There were also people who could receive information and then there were people who could transfer information across other timelines. Some people couldn't even access the field at all, so you couldn't just learn how to tap into it or learn how to receive or give information. It was all left up to what ever the field is. At least, that's how I understood it. 

There's so much to it, it's best to try and just accept that explanation for what it is. Which is a shitty explanation I'm not willing to comprehend at this time. Basically, my future self communicated with Santa to create the second Nonary Games, making him a little puppet or whatever. See? It's all complicated like I said it was. 

I did it to save Akane Kurashiki, another player in the Nonary Games. She was given the number six bracelet. She was a very close friend of mine, we knew each other since elementary school. But she left at the end of elementary school to go to another school. And we found out Santa's real name, Aoi Kurashiki. And with that, we knew they were brother and sister, working together to play this game.

We also found out as well that we were never on a ship, we were in a fake ship that held the first original games. There were two sites that held the original game, the fake ship which was in Nevada, and then the actual ship that was far away the fake ship which would actually sink. Another thing we found out was there wasn't actually bombs in us, they were only in certain people. 

There were two people among the nine people who ran the previous games, the ninth man was one, he died early one. The man who had the number one bracelet, nicknamed Ace, was also a part of the original games, actually, he was a huge contributor to the games. Actually, he was the mastermind. There was a third man who was a part of the original game, but he was murdered by Ace to keep quiet.

A lot more happened before, during and after the games that are so difficult to explain. To even try to comprehend it all hurts for me. It was so mentally taxing, and so long. We were given a total of nine hours to solve everything and escape. But those nine hours felt like an eternity with how stressful everything was. 

My cortisol for sure was at very high levels that day, and I had nightmares about it for weeks after that. I still get them, but not as much as I use to.

Sometimes, I can't tell if it even happened. It felt, and still feels, so unreal half the time with both what happened and what we had to do. I had a lingering thought about the morphogenetic field. 

I thought about how I haven't been able to access it after the game. To access the field you need to be under a lot of stress and then have one last moment to almost jump start you up to the field and be able to actually access the field. 

From what I've noticed, it's uncontrollable and done a lot without us noticing it. Maybe it can be controlled. I wouldn't know how though, I don't have nearly enough stress anymore to have it happen. Finals week seems a lot easier now after the Nonary Games.

I try and ground myself, to forget all of that, it's horrible to think about it all. It's something your brain shouldn't be able to process. The dead body of the ninth man, seeing Akane die, it's all something the average person doesn't have to deal with. At the time, in the very moment, I had dealt with it very well. 

I saved a lot of people, which is good, but it did end up having lasting affects. I have panic attacks at night, I just can't concentrate in school anymore because I have anxiety all the time. I don't even think I exist sometimes. Everything just seems so shitty, I can't talk to anyone about because people would never understand. That is, if they even believed me in the first place.

I noticed my mind was wondering once again, _fuck_ , I give a loud grunt as I hit the bar's table that I'm sitting at with my knuckle. 

I make a quick hiss as I try and collect myself, ground myself in the moment. I notice my heart rate is increasing as all of my thoughts start to focus on the moment.

I get scared I'm going to have a panic attack in front of the whole bar. People here would never understand, they would think I'm crazy. It is crazy, It's crazy that thoughts, things I can't see, can drive you this insane. 

My lungs start to build up with some hot air, at least, it felt like hot air. Because as my heart increased with it came the fire in my lungs, and soon my whole body was hot. I needed to relax, I ask Mama, the bar lady, to give me a drink of Vodka. 

It wouldn't solve my issues, I had to keep that in mind, but it would be immediate relief for what I'm feeling. And that's way better than having a panic attack right here. I tell myself just one will do the trick. 

I try not to spend a lot of time in the bar, I don't want an issue or whatever, but I do end up here a lot of the time. I don't ever get drunk, drunk, but I do get tipsy a lot. Which is better, it helps me sleep at night. I just feel, I can't go to the doctors, like what am I supposed to tell them? Hey, I have a mental illness or whatever. I don't have that, at least, not bad enough. They just wouldn't understand, I can't tell them about what happened. They would think I'm worse than I really am.

So yeah, I don't try and spend a lot of time here, but I'm here today to meet up with Seven, he was from the last Nonary Games, that was his nickname and it just stuck. He has a real name, but I never use it. Sometimes I forget he has a real name.

I just keep thinking about classes tomorrow as I'm handed my shot glass of vodka, I down it and shake my glass for at least one more, then I ask for another. I hold off on more, I can't drink four in a row, what would people think?

I still feel really panicky, but my whole body felt relieved of the fire that was just occurring in my lungs. 

The atmosphere was very quiet, maybe a hint of music playing in the background, it felt like music that would never be copyrighted online.

I kept thinking about Seven, then I thought about everyone else from the game, there was no contact really with any of the members afterwards. It's not like our lives really intertwined in any sensical way.

When enough time passed I asked for three more shots, I felt a bit insecure but then I saw someone who was so drunk he was passed out.

After six shots I let myself feel the tipsy feeling I had, the beginning stage of getting drunk is the best part to be honest. 

It feels like a sudden rush of bubbles running through your skin and warming up as they boil, and your brain has a sudden rush of happiness that just makes you giggle the first time you start to feel it.

After a while I got bored of staring all over the place and went to ask for one more shot but as I was holding it up, I heard a deep voice, "Junpei?"

I looked back and saw him, he was at least six foot, brown skin, deep brown hair, his nose was big, his mouth was plump and scars were all over his face. He was wearing a white shirt, with a black blazer and black pants. He was so well dressed and I was just in a college sports t-shirt, with long gray pants and a pair of bright yellow shoes I just got a few days before this meeting.

With him was a rough looking man, he seemed to have no facial expressions. He was looking off into the distance scanning the entire building like a war veteran before looking at me.

He was almost six foot but still in the five foot range, no one could beat the hunk of meat and muscle Seven was. And I would bet money on that too.

He has dark black hair that looked glued to his face and back of his neck, his skin was pale but had a bit of yellow undertone beneath the paleness. This man had noticeable indents right on the side of his small nose that made him look very intimidating because of how still his face already was. 

He was also wearing a black blazer but underneath was a bright red shirt with small black strips on the shirt, and his pants were just black and his shoes were too. 

I looked at Seven and said, "So you brought back up?" 

"No, a guide for the area," Seven said bluntly sitting next to him.

I looked at him and asked, "Do you have a name?"

"Hayato Yagyu," He said with a deep, almost bored sounding voice, he then sat next to Seven and looked around like a guard dog.

"I feel very welcomed," I said to Seven, I looked at him right in the face, "So, what did you call me out here for? What did you travel all the way out here for?"

"I've been stationed in Nevada as a police detective, I want you to join my team," Seven said to him.

I looked at him like he was crazy, "Some random guy you know, from Japan nonetheless?"

"We have an apartment set for you and everything, your pay will cover the rent, you get benefits. You will get training, things are insane right now in the US, human and organ trafficking has increased. Women, especially, are being ripped off the streets and never seen again. The department has created a task force to find this whole chain and squash it. I don't trust anyone there, the cops are just as corrupt as the criminals, I need someone I know I can trust with my life," Seven said to me.

I looked at him and gave a heavy sigh as I rubbed my forehead, "What makes you think I can mentally take it?"

Seven looked at me slowly, "Do you think you can't mentally take it?"

I blinked fast and gave a heavy sigh, "I don't know-" before I could finish Seven interrupted me.

Seven said, "I can't have members who doubt themselves, if you feel you can't take it, then I won't pressure you."

I itched the back of my head and tousled my hair, I thought about what happened in the last Nonary Games, how I reacted to everything. I was cool, I thought well under the pressure. Maybe that's what I'm missing after everything, I needed pressure in my life. I have too much free time here and free time brings thoughts, it's better than drowning all those thoughts out with alcohol almost every night.

Then I thought of Akane, her brother was last seen in Nevada, it was my only lead to seeing her potentially. A certain type of excitement built in my stomach and it for sure wasn't from the alcohol. No, it felt more genuine and real. Like an emotion I haven't felt in an entire month. 

Just thinking about Akane made me so happy, genuinely happy, and if I work in a detective agency at the last place we saw her brother, then...I have a small chance of maybe finding her.

I was doing a lot of mental gymnastics before Seven said to me, "Should I leave?"

"No," I said immediately, almost a bit desperate, "I'll come."

Seven nodded, "Are you sure you can handle it?"

I nod, but there was a hint of doubt in my nod, but it didn't seem Seven noticed at all, he just gave a big, toothy grin. Hayato saw it though, but said nothing. As if he was letting me make my own mistakes.

Seven said, "We have a plane ticket for you two weeks from now, 7 AM," Seven said as he laughed, "You'll have to drop out of school of course, get packed. Whatever else you need to do. I will be heading back to Nevada tomorrow. Everything is set up immigrant wise, we just need your personal info to fill out everything else. We will be paying for everything. Your VISA and passport will be given to you once you give us your personal info and arrive at the airline a day or two from now, I'll alert you."

Seven handed me an envelope and I nodded with a sigh, it was the airline ticket, this was really happening. 

This is a big decision. I know English pretty well, my Dad was an American but this is a big move. 

I nodded nonetheless and said, "I'll get everything ready for you."

Seven nodded and smiled, "Other than that, I have quite a few hours left before I have to wake up, so tell me about yourself. What have you been doing?"

I rolled my eyes, "Nothing."

"Found a lady yet?" Seven asked laughing. 

I laughed loudly and waved my shot bottle at Mama, "No, no I'm not interested in anybody."

"You're a good looking guy, I'm sure you'll have a lot of ladies swooning over you in America!" Seven said.

I laughed loudly as I was given my new shot, I thought of Akane and shook my head, "I won't trust me. I don't want to be with anybody."


End file.
